Stone Cold
by Mtbookworm
Summary: Things we good better, that's what they told him and that's what he knew. Jack recovered, Crutchy recovered and so would he. He just wished he didn't feel so cold. For the Newsies Pape Selling Competition
Day 1

Kept your head down. That's what they had told him, the guys behind him in the court line. Kept your head down, don't cause trouble, just wait it out. It's the best way to deal with the refuge.

But Les wasn't sure if he could do that.

He looked across the shabby carriage that had probably twenty other boys crammed inside it with him. The oldest looked seventeen, the youngest was sitting next to him and looked about eight or nine.

That's how old I was when I became a newsie.

Les shuddered at the thought of his ten year old self being sent to the refuge. He had remembered tales of the old refuge being told like ghost stories to him and the other younger boys when he and David would stay over at the bunkhouse.

But of course the old refugee wasn't old anymore. After the strike, Snider had been stripped of his position and a group of Progressive workers from a settlement house took over and for about two years the refuge was actually a refuge. But as it always is with people and politics, greed would eventually out way sympathy, and before you knew it a money grubbing Stalwart was in control and was even worse then before.

"The Refuge isn't a place you want to be Les," Jack had told him right after the refuge had resumed its horrible reputation. "Promise me you will never let yourself end up there."

Jack was going to kill him. David was going to kill him. His parents were going to kill him. He is sure the four of them and some of the other guys would have tried to pull together the money to get him out, but it had all happened so fast. He had caught some punk beating on one of the younger kids from the lodge and run in to defend the boy. Five years of being a newsie and training under Jack, Race, Romeo, and even Spot on occasion had made him a pretty good fighter, despite the fact most of them still called him squirt.

The well dressed manner of the boy he was slugging should have been the first clue. Before he knew it, one of the guys friend had called the Bulls, and Les was being dragged away while the kid he defend was running towards The Sun has fast as his legs could carry him. It was during his almost immediate trial that Lea found out the punk he beat up was the son of a very prominent party boss, and the trial reflected that. No formal charges, no appearance of his family because he was a miner, no chance to defend himself. It was all a blur. The one thing he clearly remembered was the gavel coming down with his sentencing right as David and Jack ran in. Three months in the Refuge.

The words were still ringing in his ears as the carriage pulled to a stop. He and all the others were ushered inside and through the moldy doors that had been described as being the gateway to hell itself. They were pushed through the creaking doors and into a hall that smelled of musk and mold. They were pushed into a big room with shells of ragged, mismatched cloths and Les barely remembered them being told to hand over their personal items and grab clothes from the shelves to change into. He heard the young boy from earlier whimper as he was being forced to give up rusty old pocket watch.

"Hey," Les interceded on the boy's behalf, "Is he gonna get that back." The older boy rounded on him.

"What's it to you, kid? Back in line." He growled as he shoved Les back amongst the rest of the boys, then leaned in towards him. "I know who you are. You're one of those Manhattan newsie brats. The strikers. We're gonna have fun with you squirt."

He hated being called squirt. It was bad enough half the guys still called him squirt despite the fact that he was fifthteen. He couldn't stand it, especially coming from this thug.

So Les was pushed back in line, and he the other eight boys were shoved into one of the already overcrowded bunk rooms. He looked across the room at the boys he would be spending the next three months of his life with. Most of them were gaunt and weary looking, and all the others had gazes as cold as stone.

Les prayed he could make it out of this without turning into either of them.

Day 14

Les didn't think he has ever been this cold. Or hungry too for that matter. He looked out the windowsill at the snow covered streets where he saw the boys who had been deemed to have "misbehaved" shoveling snow, a job Les had done just yesterday.

"Get back in there you little street rat!" Les turned his head and saw Alan being shoved to the floor by one of the supervisors, who then promptly spit in the boys face. "Maybe you'll think next time before you let yourself be so clumsy." He then promptly slammed the door and the room was silent once again.

Les hopped down from the window sill and walked over to pull the boy to his feet. Alan was the young boy Les had meet on the first day. He had Les shared a bunk with two other boys and were as close to friends as two boys could be in the refuge.

"What happened Alan?" The two of them sat on a bunk while Les wiped the spit off Alan's face.

"My hand slipped and I messed up one if the chair carvings. He beat me with a belt."

"You gotta be more careful. Don't give them any reason to notice you."

"I'm trying Les, I swear I am. Is your arm any better?"

His arm, it had really started hurting him a few days after he got there. He had probably done something to it in the fight, but in his current situation there was no way to know what happened.

"Nah, kid. I'm fine." To be honest it hurt like hell, but he wasn't going to tell Alan that. One of them had to be strong. Alan was counting on him. Les had gotten to know a lot about Alan in the past few weeks, and he was determined to get the kid out of his bad situation. He had been a chimney sweep for a couple of well to do families before he has been caught sleeping in the basement and got four months for trespassing.

"The two of us just gotta hang in here. I'll wait for you on the other side kiddo. The newsies are good group. You'll love it out, spending all day outside. It's good work. I'll teach how to create good headlines myself. You'll be natural, I can…" Though before Les could finish he looked down to see Alan had fallen asleep from exhaustion.

"Yeah, sleep kiddo. That's the best way to get through this. Dream it all away."

Day 45

A month and a half. Les had been living in this damn hell hole for a month and a half. He had been pushed around, worked to the bone, frozen, and starved. But despite all of the bad things, today Les had reached a new peak of miserable.

Today was his brothers wedding.

They couldn't move it, Les knew they couldn't. His parent had saved up for months to pay for the wedding. His mother and her friends form the Synagogue had spent weeks making the chuppah. Even more so, he knew how desperately David and Tempi wanted to be married. They had been engaged for over six months and anyone who saw the two of them knew how ridiculously in love they were. Les liked Temperance. She was kind and outgoing, she was a teacher and even gave lessons to the newsies at the lodge on the weekends, and she brought out the best. He didn't want them to have to wait one more second to get married, even if it ment he would miss it.

The day itself had gone horribly. He smarted off under his breath to the supervisor, McNab, who seemed to have made it his personal mission to make Les miserable and his punishment had been being moved into to the hard work room, a beating which only augmented the pain in his arm that still hadn't lessened, and the his already small amount of food being cut back.

Basically Les was miserable. The sun was setting and he had just collapsed down on a bunk, begging for the sweet relief of sleep that despite his exhaustion evaded him. He closed his eyes for two seconds before being brought back by a commotion at the window.

"What the hell are all those people doing out there?!"

"They're gonna freeze to death!"

"Are they standing under a bed sheet?"

Les, realizing that he wasn't getting any rest, and he was mildly interested in what the others were seeing out the window. He got up and pushed his way through to one of the windows, and his heart stopped at what he saw. It was dusk, but instead of the street being empty there were at least fourty people outside. All of them were bundled up in blankets or coats; he recognized a majority of his neighbors and newsies amount the crowd, but the center of the crowd was where he was focused. Surrounded by the congregation, two people stood under a beautiful canopy. The man was wearing a kippah and a prayer shaw, while the woman was wearing a white dress and a quilt to ward off the cold. It took Les a second to realize what was happening.

That was David and Tempi. They had decided to have their wedding in front of the Refuge so Les could see it.

The other boys soon lost interest but Les never left the window. He watched as candles were lit as it grew dark, as prayers were said over the two couples, as his mother led Tempi around David three times, and as David broke the glass under his foot. He chuckled to himself over how worried David was that he wouldn't be able to break the glass. The couple looked up at him in the window and smiled as the wedding procession continued down the street.

Les smiled as he watched them go, knowing that when he got out of this place not only would he have a brother, but a sister as well. That night, when Les closed his eyes, he slept, and found solace in his sleep.

Day 89

They had been worsening in the carpentry shop. He and Alan only had three more days in this hell hole and he wanted to make sure they both stayed out of trouble. He had been sawing wood, when he heard a shoot coming from across the room. Alan had been carving and the knife slipped, so not only did he nick the wood but he sliced his finger open, effectively splattering blood in what he had been trying to carve.

"You damn little idiot!" The supervisor shouted. He hoisted Alan up by his shirt collar and slammed him against the wall. Alan was frantically trying to stop the blood from his finger that had now stained both his and the supervisor's shirts.

McNab held a struggling Alan against the wall while he fished into his back pocket and pulled out something that glinted in the light.

"I've had enough of you. Maybe this 'll teach you to be more damn careful you worthless piece of trash." He said as he slid the brass knuckles on to his hand and pulled his fist back. Les was tacked back to a time five years ago, when a similar weapon had been pulled on him and his brother.

Les lost it. He was really aware of what happened next, it is was mostly just a red haze. He let all the frustration, helpless, desperation, and anger he had been holding in lose as he pummeled McNab. In that moment Les hit rock bottom, he gave in to everything he said he wouldn't become. He could vaguely remember shouting, being pulled away from a McNab who was lying in a heap on the floor, and, worst of all, the terrified look in Alan's eyes.

Les didn't even struggle as they dragged him away. He didn't put up a fight as they dealt him the worst beating he ever had. Switches, belts, knuckles, fists, he didn't feel any of it. He blacked out, he was thankful for that, because only in unconscious could he forget the look of fear he saw in Alan's eyes.

Les woke up to a small amount of light shinning into his blackened eyes. The light was coming through the small cracks and holes in the wall of basement he was in. He leaned up and groaned, feeling pain shoot through every part of his body. He couldn't see himself but he was sure he was a sore sight, with blood and dirt caking his skin. He felt the metallic taste in his mouth, as well as gap where on if his teeth used to be. He heard rats scurrying across the cold stone floor and smell the mold on the walls. He knew why he was here, they told him to keep his head down, he had failed miserably.

An hour later Simone came in with a glass is dirty water and piece of moldy bread. He couldn't tell who they were through his blurred vision, but they told him his action earned him another month.

It was another two weeks before they let him out of the basement. By the time Alan was gone. The only people who knew what happened to him were the supervisors, and they sure as hell weren't going to tell Les.

From that moment on everything changed. Les remembered when he had hated how people looked at him like a child, now he wished he could go back to that. The others looked at him with fear in their eyes. Whenever he walked into a room they parted. He didn't see McNab among the supervisors who sneered at him and beat him once a week. He wondered what happened to him.

And so this how his life went on for another month. At the end of the month he was released, but not after one last beating to remember his stay by. He hadn't had any feeling in his arm for two weeks.

David was there to pick him up. David, Jack, and Tempi. They smiled at him, embraced him, but he didn't smile back. He was sure they all saw what he saw in the mirror, a boy who once bright eyes were now as cold as stone.

He asked the guys if Alan had tried to come and find them. They said no. Les would have to accept that.

He tried to make it through the days. He smiled as best he could for his parents, went to school, sold papers. But he couldn't shake that feeling, the coldness the refuge had left behind as a parting gift. That along with limited movement in his arm.

The guys looked at him differently now. They didn't treat him like kid anymore, though to be honest he wished they did.

Things we good better, that's what they told him and that's what he knew. Jack recovered, Crutchy recovered and so would he.

He just wished he didn't feel so cold.


End file.
